Any Other World
by jeviennis
Summary: Post TGG. Nothing in John's life is quite right.


Any Other World

As John pushed the door of 221B open with a creak, he was greeted with a rush of musty air. Musty air and reminders. He saw the wall singed by an exploding kettle, a cushion with a hole through it, thanks to some unknown acid, and almost had to fight back a laugh. But when he saw the shrapnel from the last cup of tea and the empty beaker on the floor, the laugh died in his throat.

Sherlock was gone.

He'd shot the bomb and John had prayed to a god he wasn't sure he even believed in that it was fake. God lied. And now John returned home to a dull empty flat with a Sherlock-shaped hole in his life.

Mrs Hudson came by once or twice, just to check up on him. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better, didn't know if there was anything on this earth that could. She left soon after, complaining hastily of allergies with her back to him. He didn't want to be anti-social, but being anywhere without Sherlock seemed pointless. Without him, there was nothing special in the world, nothing to pick up, deduce or find. There was just life. And then death. And then maybe, if he was lucky, a life after that. There was no beauty in the detail, just plain and black and white.

He kept making two cups of tea by accident, but as he looked down at the cold brew, he couldn't bring himself to pour it down the sink. Everyone – including Sherlock – knew that he made the best damn tea in the world. So mugs began to gather at the kitchen sink, day after day, as John refused to acknowledge that any second, his incredible, annoying, brilliant, crazy flatmate wouldn't walk in and demand a beverage. John wanted to be ready. He drank his own tea slowly as he watched Jeremy Kyle re-runs in the dark gloom of the living room; there was no point going fast, where was he rushing to? There was no crime scenes, no morgue visits – without Sherlock Holmes, Scotland Yard had no need for John Watson. They had other doctors, more skilled ones, any doctor they wanted at their disposal. The only thing that made John special was Sherlock.

Sarah asked him to get back to work as kindly as possible. Told him he could take as long as he could but that she needed him there all at once. A child with a chest cold and an elderly woman wanting a hip medication refill was all that waited for him there. So he ignored her messages, absent-mindedly pressed the delete button on the answering machine with a small 'oops' on his lips. But he meant to do it. He didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay exactly where he was. Curled up on Sherlock's side of the sofa wrapped in a blanket watching daytime TV. Of course the man wasn't the boy's father; look at the turn ups on his jeans. Somehow, with Sherlock, all those crazy notions had made sense. But now John felt the ghosts of his brilliance slipping from his brain, like when he woke up and tried to remember his dream. He knew it was there, but accessing it was an entirely different story.

One day, there was a knock at the door. John always leapt to his feet, heart in his mouth, desperate to be able to scream and shout to his friend about pissing off with not so much as a second thought for anyone. But it was just Lestrade with a curry, pleading him to eat. The violin lay in the corner as John was passed food over a messy desk, a sympathetic half-smile on the DI's face. According to him, he understood what John was going through, he knew it was hard. John highly doubted that.

Months passed and the cups of tea were still scattered around the sink, gathering dirt. No doubt Sherlock would want to do some experiments on that when he got back, John's delusions of grandeur told him. Whispered in his ear that all would be well, that he'd be driven out of his house by Mozart at 2am, that he'd be chasing crazy serial killers in no time. His delusions kept him sane. Without them, he had to sink back down to human level. He couldn't stay at Sherlock level in the outside world. He wasn't Sherlock. Sherlock wasn't even there.

The days went by and no one even came close to making a Sherlock-like point. John needed something – anything – to prove that he was still there, that he made a difference to someone. John couldn't have been the only one that Sherlock affected, surely not. But everyone else seemed to have forgotten him; moving on, they called it. But there was no moving on from a mind like that. He supposed that maybe this world wasn't right for him anymore, because any place without a mind like Sherlock Holmes wasn't really a place at all. Years went by and John wished he was anywhere other than where he was.

Any other world.


End file.
